Why do Jab and Tiger Palm hit like a wet noodle?

I know that they're only abilities to build up your damage but even so is it justifiable Jab hits like 1/3rd of autoattack damage and Tiger Palm hits also a bit less than autoattacks? Wasn't it in WotLK that blizz said they wanted active abilities to matter more and feel like they hit hard? Why the sudden change in philosophy for one class? And that coupled with another ramp up mechanic, Tigereye Brew, I feel it's too much of a penalty since our hard hitting abilities really don't hit that hard in comparision to some other classes (some of which don't require to ramp up damage to begin with).

I guess it's the concept of the 'combo': you do lots of weak attacks to open up your opponent's defenses (portrayed by Tiger's Palm giving you 30% armor penetration), then at exactly the right moment unleash a big finisher to deal mega damage.

I dunno, I have no issue with it. So long as our DPS is comparable overall to other classes, then it's all good. That said, I'm a Brewmaster Monk with absolutely insane AoE damage, so I must admit DPS has been pretty low on my list of concerns...

I don't like the fact we are dependent so much on one ability, Rising Sun Kick, for most of our DPS.

If that one attack misses or gets parried/dodged, you're fucked on a lot of DPS for the next 8s. That is our hardest hitting attack by far as well as an attack that debuffs with mortal wounds AND increase our DPS by 10% AoE.

Pretty much forces us to cap out hit/expertise before even thinking of any other stat.

That's just so much shit riding on one ability on a 8s cd.

And I thought my Warrior had it bad with Mortal Strike on a 4s cd...

"It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble; it's what we know for sure that just ain't so." ~ Mark Twain"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" ~ Jesus of Nazareth"把它放在我的屁股，爸爸" ~ Dalai Lama

I guess it's the concept of the 'combo': you do lots of weak attacks to open up your opponent's defenses (portrayed by Tiger's Palm giving you 30% armor penetration), then at exactly the right moment unleash a big finisher to deal mega damage.

I dunno, I have no issue with it. So long as our DPS is comparable overall to other classes, then it's all good. That said, I'm a Brewmaster Monk with absolutely insane AoE damage, so I must admit DPS has been pretty low on my list of concerns...

What concerns me is mostly PvP and fast fights in PvE. I don't see how Windwalker could be viable in those situations given these mechanics. As for Aoe, the problem remains, that also requires us to build up damage and it isn't possible if packs die before we can do so.

I've been kind of wondering about these myself. I'm BrM main, so I don't really care, but needing 3 stacks of TP and Tiger's eye stacks to do optimal dps, how do WWs deal with arenas where burst is needed a lot?

The ramp up time is very small, yes sometimes jab and tiger palm hit like a wet noodle, but we will see how well they do this week with raids coming out.

And there are reall no fast fights in PvE, ive had no trouble getting my buffs up and keeping them up on any fight(Heroics dont really matter but still). I actually believe are dps will go up in raids due to bosses staying in one place more often so I can actually use FoF, which hits like a frickin truck.

I don't like the fact we are dependent so much on one ability, Rising Sun Kick, for most of our DPS.

If that one attack misses or gets parried/dodged, you're fucked on a lot of DPS for the next 8s. That is our hardest hitting attack by far as well as an attack that debuffs with mortal wounds AND increase our DPS by 10% AoE.

Pretty much forces us to cap out hit/expertise before even thinking of any other stat.

That's just so much shit riding on one ability on a 8s cd.

And I thought my Warrior had it bad with Mortal Strike on a 4s cd...

What? If Rising Sun Kick is your most damage doing ability during normal boss fight you are doing something wrong. Most damage doing ability should be Blackout Kick + it's DOT. Yes RSK is hardest hitting ability, yes it sucks if you don't connect with it. But there's so many other reasons that increases value of hit and expertise. You should be using Tiger's Palm as late as possible. Imagine if that misses gets dodged/parried? There goes 3 stacks. Or Jab when you get Energizing Brew? You get energy capped most likely. Pretty much every melee class and spec should be getting hit/expertise cap asap (yes I know there are few spec with other ratings even more valuable).

The most annoying thing I've come up to is Tigerseye Brew and repetitive tries on new boss that requires high burn at the start. Good example would be Ultraxion heroic where Hero will be burned at the start for DPS. You are stuck with 0 stacks after wipe. I would love to see something like this ability.

they are not supposed to hit hard, they are combo builders, not finishers.

---------- Post added 2012-10-02 at 09:53 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Sengura

I don't like the fact we are dependent so much on one ability, Rising Sun Kick, for most of our DPS.

If that one attack misses or gets parried/dodged, you're fucked on a lot of DPS for the next 8s. That is our hardest hitting attack by far as well as an attack that debuffs with mortal wounds AND increase our DPS by 10% AoE.

Pretty much forces us to cap out hit/expertise before even thinking of any other stat.

you are always supposed to be hit capped. That is how all classes have to play. Every single dps class has to hit cap. and the secondary stat allotment (hit, or hit expertise, or hit/spirit) is the exactly the same for all dps classes.

Argument doesn't really work when Rogues and Druids combo builders hit so hard.

Though, our finishers can be used very often since they don't scale with points like rogues and druids and are fairly cheap.

exactly, Windwalkers have 1 builder to 1 finisher ratio, Ferals and rogues have up to 5 builders to 1 finisher, so much of their time is spent building up to their finisher, that making the difference between builders and finisher too great would really punish them to commit an error.

For monks that risk is not so great, and you are it finishers every other attack, so more damage can be allocated to the finishers.

exactly, Windwalkers have 1 builder to 1 finisher ratio, Ferals and rogues have up to 5 builders to 1 finisher, so much of their time is spent building up to their finisher, that making the difference between builders and finisher too great would really punish them to commit an error.

For monks that risk is not so great, and you are it finishers every other attack, so more damage can be allocated to the finishers.

I'm not familiar with rogues, so I only know about ferals. What do monks have that rival Berserk and Tiger's Fury? Energizing Brew is a failure copy of Tiger's Fury. Druid tier 90 talents are also damage booster/stat booster cooldowns. Oh and Glyph of Savagery makes things manageable too.

I want to be decent dps for single tank fights if I'm not tanking, so I'd like to know how to optimize my dps.

There is no ability like Berserk for Windwalkers (there is no ability like Berserk for rogues either it should be noted).
There is no ability that makes combo builder's cheaper but we don't need such an ability really because the builder to spender ratio is already 1:1, and no ability that increases damage on a 3minute cooldown (although Invoke Xuen is a level 90 Dps cooldown).

The abilites most like Savage Roar are:
A) Tiger Palm (forces us to allocate combo points to keep a rolling buff up 100%, but unlike Savage Roar, TP does damage in and of itself)
B) Rising Sun Kick (adds a Damage modifier debuff to targets that must be up 100%, but we always used RSK on cooldown as it is one of our best attacks) and
C) Tiger's Eye Brew (increases all damage done but does not cost any resources to use, and is subject to RNG).

Monks have a lot of mid-range cooldowns from 25 second and 1.5 second cooldowns
(Fists of Fury, Grapple Weapon, Touch of Death, Touch of Karma) and they don't have many bleeds, which means they can't multi-dot, but their combo points accrue to themselves, not their targets, so can target switch with impunity which no rogues or feral can do.

Actually, destro locks have a spell that sacrifices their imps so they can nuke like fire mages.

Actually, ALL locks have access to Grimoire of Sacrifice, which will sac your pet for some passive health regen, extra damage on certain casts, as well as one of the demon's abilities. That being said, the talent doesn't make a Destro Lock play anything like a Fire Mage, (certainly not anymore than it currently does, which, IMO, it does not...and I play both classes/specs to boot.)

I agree with Grubjuice - apples to oranges. Why not play a Rogue or a Feral Druid if you want to be just like them? Personally, I like differences between classes.

Blizz said they want playing a Monk to feel like a fighting game. And they succeeded imo.
It very much feels like setting up a Ultra combo in Super Street Fighter 4 to me. All the jabs and other moves to open them up, and then WHAM Ultra combo to the face.

Actually, ALL locks have access to Grimoire of Sacrifice, which will sac your pet for some passive health regen, extra damage on certain casts, as well as one of the demon's abilities. That being said, the talent doesn't make a Destro Lock play anything like a Fire Mage, (certainly not anymore than it currently does, which, IMO, it does not...and I play both classes/specs to boot.)

I agree with Grubjuice - apples to oranges. Why not play a Rogue or a Feral Druid if you want to be just like them? Personally, I like differences between classes.

Actually, I messed up and combined that grimoire and Dark Soul :P.

I actually might switch back to my druid if I'm not going to be tanking 1 tank fights. I'd rather bring the utility of a feral druid + dps than the monk.

You use the square-button left punch jab a lot to probe and poke the opponent, and when the time is right you unleash a monster counter and/or juggle that does the majority of the damage to their health bar.

Same deal here - it's a Jab. Jabs by nature are quick, low power punches that are used to open up opportunities for bigger strikes.